This week the Education Select Committee held a one-off evidence session to look at the Interim Report of the Office of the Children’s inquiry into child exploitation. Published last November, the report sought for the first time to present an accurate figure of the victims of child sexual exploitation over a 14 month period – 2,409 confirmed victims, with 16,500 children being identified as being at risk.

The report has not been without controversy. Newspaper reports quoted an ‘unnamed government source’ stating that the report was ‘hysterical and half-baked’ while other sources suggested that the department was concerned that the report played down the ethnicity of the ‘perpetrators’ of abuse.

The evidence we received from the Deputy Children’s Commissioner, Sue Berelowitz, was quick to highlight that our general understanding of the issue has been distorted by the tabloids. But she also highlighted just how far we are behind in tracking the evidence to make an accurate assessment of child sexual exploitation in this country – and who exactly are the gangs that are involved in such horrific abuse.

In particular, police evidence seems to have solely tracked only abuse from ethnic gangs against white girls, creating a distorted picture when the report’s findings make clear that the situation is far more complex, with young girls being passed from gang to gang, of multiple ethnicities.

Perhaps more controversial were Ms Berelowitz’s comments to the committee that “we are encountering a reluctance certainly in some schools to face up to the fact that some of the bullying that takes place within the school environment actually amounts to sexual exploitation, certainly sexual violence”.

While mentioning examples of good practice, she told the committee that other schools were reluctant to admit that child sexual exploitation might be taking place behind the school gates, “because the heads there are worried that people think there's a problem in their schools.”

Listening to her evidence, as the report states, you can’t help but feel that as the Office of the Children’s Commissioner continues its work into the report over the next two years, this is ‘tip of the iceberg’ stuff, and tragically there will be more horrific stories to emerge.

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Arguments over the history curriculum seem set to run and run until the consultation deadline in April, with academics working themselves into fits of pique over the proposals. One of the more remarkable exchanges included Sir Richard Evans’s recent attack on Niall Ferguson’s article in support of the draft History national curriculum which demonstrated how the political can be quickly replaced by the personal when it comes to education policy.

Surely it must be possible to having a rational debate – disagreement or not – on the broad issues that the new curriculum raises, without accusations about each other’s writing style (Ferguson called Evans’ books ‘dry’, in retaliation Evans condemns Ferguson as writing ‘in the sneering populism of a Daily Mail leader’) or a defence of what school someone sends their children.

When debates on education do kick off, why do they seem to bring out the worst in people? Perhaps it is the fact that everyone has some knowledge of school, having been through the system, compared to the relative few who have had the experience of lying on a hospital bed, that explains why education is the one area of public policy where we all seem to have a view, however trenchant.

But does that excuse rudeness? Once, speaking at a conference, I remember looking out to the front row to see a teacher – a departmental head – slapping her forehead repeatedly as I delivered what to her, guessing by the signs, was an unwelcome message. I’m not sure she would have tolerated such behaviour among her pupils.

Or more recently, attending a seminar one weekend to try and have a constructive discussion about the history curriculum, I might as well have been wearing a rubber Michael Gove mask over my head for some of the scowls and unnecessary sarcasm that greeted my attempt to try and engage.

Sitting on the Health Select Committee also, it’s not a reception I get at health events, where in spite of strong disagreement, professionals are perfectly able to have rational discussions. Maybe education debates will always be emotively driven, flaring with anger and often bordering on the irrational – take the bouts of Goveophobia displayed by the likes of the NUT.

Nevertheless, the quality of the debate will always be the lesser for it.

Chris Skidmore is MP for Kingswood, a member of the Education Select Committee and sometime Tudor historian. He writes a weekly blog for Telegraph Education on life inside the Education Select Committee.